(You Are Not Alone) In the Aftermath
by Khashana
Summary: What if Nick had legit reasons for not telling the team about Coulson? What if Tony was mostly right about Clint's family? What if C/C was compliant with AOU and AoS? Fury and Natasha have to make some hard decisions to save lives. Currently on status: flail until I finish watching AoS and Agent Carter, but works as a complete fic as is.
1. Nick Fury's Side of the Story

SHIELD security camera, Director's office, shortly after the battle of New York.

A man with an eye patch and an impressive leather coat sat at his desk, on the phone with the government. A woman with red hair, dressed in a tactical suit opened the door without knocking and strode in with purpose in her jaw and a dead look in her eyes. She was one of very few people who could have managed this entrance without being unavoidably and painfully detained on the way. Nick Fury told the President of the United States that he would call him back and met Natasha Romanoff's gaze.

"It's Barton," she said without preamble.

"Medical can't clear him," he agreed.

"This is magic, nothing we were ever trained for," she argued, not with him, he knew. "Medical has no idea if he's clean."

"What about you, Agent Romanoff?" asked Fury, steepling his fingers. "Do you say he's clean?"

"I can't make that determination," she answerd, her face shuttering. "He's cleaner than when he was trying to kill us, that's for certain. But when he dreams…he keeps trying to hurt me, and it takes him a long time to wake up enough to know what he's doing."

"Trying being the operative word, I assume," replied Fury, raising his eyebrow.

"He doesn't _win,_ " said Natasha, rolling her eyes with a hint of her usual self before flashing back to the blank look. "But it's killing him that he's trying."

"Report, Romanoff," requested Fury.

"Refusing food, accepting medical treatment only with greater reluctance than usual, sitting alone, not engaging with others, spending so much time shooting things he's hurting himself."

"It's Barton. Did you expect him to deal by crying a flood and throwing himself back into his life?"

"He blames himself for Phil's death," said Natasha bluntly.

"Well, that would muck with a man's ability to cope, wouldn't it," mused Fury. "Letting in the man who killed your own husband. Dismissed, Romanoff. Barton's not the only problem I have to solve this week. With any luck, I can solve a few of 'em at once."

It wasn't that week, but the next, that Fury saw a different dangerous woman in his office about Clint Barton.

"Good morning, Agent Nathan. It's good to meet you properly. I wonder if you could give me a review of your history with Clint Barton and Phil Coulson."

"Director Fury," Laura replied. "I'm sure you could give me a better one than I could give you."

Fury chuckled. "I like you already. Nevertheless, I prefer to get your take on it before I go making particularly rash decisions."

Laura Nathan nodded. "I met Clint and Phil, as well as Natasha Romanoff, when an op unexpectedly involved my sister Audrey, at which point I called for backup, not wanting to somehow compromise the op. Phil saved Audrey's life, and they grew rather attached to each other. Phil suspected Audrey's interest to be romantic, so Clint, Natasha and I ended up involved in their relationship quite a bit, helping Phil to navigate that landmine and eventually, to hang out and laugh at the pair of them. Audrey accepted it would never go anywhere after she heard about Clint, but as we all know, it's not that easy to turn feelings off, and I believe she still has them, but they maintained as close a friendship as they could with that as well as SHIELD's usual relationship hazards in the way. I stayed even closer to the three of them, not having agent/civilian problems to deal with, and we remained close friends up through my resignation from SHIELD to raise the children I rescued from my op in Toronto. They're all regulars at my place. And the tension lessened considerably last month when Audrey took a job with the symphony in Portland."

Fury nodded. "That's just about perfect, Agent. I may have a proposal for you."

"Why, Director, we've just met," teased Laura.

"Oh, it's not me who'd be marrying you, Ms. Nathan."

"You have got to be kidding me, Sir," said Natasha Romanoff as she stared into the lab where the prone form of Phil Coulson was lying on a table.

"Romanoff, honestly, tell me you have a better idea," said Fury, spreading his hands. "Barton may still have Loki in the brain, so he needs watching, preferably by a SHIELD agent. The only way to ensure Phil Coulson's continued existence on God's green earth involves a procedure that will wipe a good chunk of his memory, including some of the most important parts of his relationship with his husband. If for some reason I decided not to make that happen, Barton gets to drown in guilt, fail to properly mourn his husband, and quite possibly end up dead as well. I heard you had to take a bottle of pills away from him this morning."

Natasha did not flinch. Natasha never flinched.

"Now what am I supposed to do, wipe Coulson's memory and give him back to his husband, confusing the hell out of said husband's tortured and attempting-to-mourn brain, forcing said husband to care for him and rebuild the relationship on his own whilst being thoroughly fucked in the head, and quite possibly killing him again anyway should said husband be housing a demigod?"

"So we wipe Clint's memory," said Natasha without moving. "We give him a family to go home to so he can work through everything, incidentally a family that contains a woman who could take him out if necessary."

"Hardly incidentally, Romanoff, I thought you knew me better than that," said Fury, and Natasha cracked half a smile.

"Laura's agreed to it?"

"Laura's agreed. She's very fond of Clint, her kids are both old enough and used to weird shit to go along with it, and they already know him and you both, so there will be very little acting going on, and very little work to convince his brain he loves her." He was repeating all her own words back to her, but she didn't comment on it.

"Fine," said Natasha. "But you're the one explaining your logic to him when he eventually finds out."

Natasha dragged Clint to his appointment with SHIELD medical, reflecting grimly that Clint had never liked it and would never so much as set foot in it again if he learned what had been done to him. She ended up in the waiting room with Laura Nathan, now Laura Barton.

"You don't have to do this," she said quietly, making eye contact with the woman she considered a sister.

"I don't, but I'm going to," agree Laura. Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"He needs my help. I can give him safety and a way out of this mess. I do love him, as a dear friend, and he's not hard on the eyes. It won't be such a burden to be a wife to him. Nat, I miss Phil myself, and I know that pain is magnified beyond belief for you, and even more than that for Clint. If I can do something to make it liveable, I will."


	2. Natasha Romanoff's Side of the Story

Thing is, she told them. "I'm going to ground," she said to Clint, she said to Laura, she said to Steve and therefore they should've known.

Natasha should not have looked up at the television from the tiny bar in Italy while she was slowly piecing her life back together, finding the bits that SHIELD hadn't touched, that she hadn't thrown on the Internet for anyone to see, rebuilding her web. She shouldn't have looked up to see her own face among the Avengers as Sokovia was destroyed.

Natasha swore, long and loud, and then she picked up her phone and dialed Tony Stark.

Nothing. No one picked up, no answering machine, no JARVIS, no Tony.

She tried the Director.

"Phil Coulson."

"This is Romanoff."

"We're on the situation, Romanoff, I've just sent a helicarrier your way."

"To Sokovia or to Pisa?"

A pause.

"To Sokovia. What's going on in Pisa?"

"That's where I am, Director. Whoever you've got in Sokovia is wearing my face."

"Well, shit," said Phil succinctly. "Access code?"

She rattled it off.

"I'll ping Fury, I can't do anything from here. Come back to the States, will you, Romanoff? I have a feeling they're going to need you."

Natasha agreed and hung up.

Never before had the flight across the Atlantic seemed so long.

* * *

Clint was flying the Quinjet when the message came through.

"Hey, Stark," he called. "Mind manning communications, my hands are kind of full."

Tony pulled up the message. "Fury forwarded us a message from..."

"From?"

"Somebody in SHIELD, it doesn't look important." Fingers flying, Tony forwarded the message to himself and deleted it. He walked over to Natasha, trying to look casual.

"Is Clint allowed to know Coulson's alive or is that gonna mess with his programming?"

"I don't know," she said. "Not like we've ever tried it before. Why?"

"We got a message from him."

"Let me see, then I can figure out a way to tell him anything he needs to know."

"FRIDAY, forward that message to Natasha," said Tony to his helmet.

"On it, boss."

He waited while she read the message.

"So?" he said. "Anything important?"

Natasha was frowning. "Phil says he's run into somebody in Italy wearing my face."

"What?" Tony said.

"You remember, the face mask tech that I used to infiltrate the WSC."

Tony nodded pensively. "So what do we do now?"

"As soon as we get back to the states I need to change my access codes," said Natasha, "redo all of JARVIS's security-or is it FRIDAY's now?" Tony's face was impassive.

"I'll have it taken care of," was all he said.

* * *

Natasha expected some kind of message when she landed back in the States, never mind that nobody was supposed to be able to contact her. But absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary until she got to Stark Tower and her access code didn't work.

"JARVIS, what's going on?" she asked the front door.

"Agent Romanoff has changed her access codes," said a female, definitely not JARVIS, voice.

"No, I didn't," she said automatically, and then it hit her.

"Agent Romanoff has also been a victim of identity theft," said the voice.

Somehow, the imposter knew Natasha was onto her, and had warned the others of the exact same thing that had actually happened, except with the real Natasha as the bad guy.

"We can't go on like this," said Natasha to Steve. "Rhodey and Sam already barely know how to work with the rest of us, and now with Wanda and Vision, we're only half trained." Steve nodded.

"I've been thinking about that as well. My best idea is to start up a new base to work with all of them." Natasha nodded. "Let the others know, will you?" he asked. "I can use all the Avengers I can get, especially with Banner gone."

"Steve and I are starting up a new base to train the newer Avengers," said Natasha to Tony. "Now that the scepter's not a threat, we should buckle down and really work on the details. Thought I should let you know before you split."

"I can stay, if you want some aerial support for the newbies." He had his hands in his pockets, affecting casual.

"No, that's alright," she told him. "We have War Machine for that." Before he could get out a syllable of 'that's not what I meant,' she added, "Besides, you still have the upgrades to the tower to do before Pepper gets home from Xavier's." Tony stared at her for a second.

"Not even getting into how you know she's there, what upgrades? The staff can handle the damage Ultron caused."

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you're not going to flame-retard the tower, and for that matter the city block."

"Pepper's not going to set the building on fire," Tony dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I stabilized the Extremis."

"You think," Natasha reminded him. "It's not like you have any proof unless she goes hot. She's a danger to everyone around her, Tony. Xavier is a telepath, not omnipotent. She wouldn't even be the first fireball he lost control of."

Tony opened his mouth and pointed a finger at her. After a moment of silence, he just said, "Fuck you," and stalked off in the opposite direction.

* * *

She didn't even get a chance to talk to Clint before he headed back to his farm, ready for the birth of his child.

* * *

Natasha tried calling Tony next, but even after hacking the system to get around the computer, whatever the new one was called, he hung up on her as soon as he saw her face. "What. The. Hell." said Natasha to the phone. From what she could tell, none of the Avengers were at Stark Tower anyway, not that they left any clues to where they were. Finally she headed off to Clint's, cursing her dearest friend for not owning a landline. Yes, he was deaf, but Laura wasn't.

"What happened in Budapest?" asked Clint when he opened the door.

"I took down a gang in an epic firefight, and you got laid," she said. Clint grinned and let her in.

"Had to make sure you weren't your new evil twin," he said. "What's up? Need me back at the new base?"

"New base?" said Natasha, momentarily distracted. Clint's smile vanished.

"Laura?" he called into the house without breaking eye contact. "Can you bring me my phone?"

Laura appeared a moment later with a baby wrapped in a green blanket and a cell phone. "Aw, phone," said Clint, seeing that it was dead.

"Why did you think I didn't call?" Natasha muttered. Clint herded her into the kitchen and gestured toward a chair while he plugged it in.

"What are the names of my kids?" he asked.

"Cooper, Lila, and the baby is since I talked to you last after SHIELD fell."

Clint frowned. "Date of birth."

"I've never told you that at all."

"Yeah, but I know the general idea," said Clint.

"1928."

The phone turned on and Clint dialed. "Steve. Hey, you got a Natasha still? Yeah? Like, literally can you lay eyes on her?" A pause. "Well, that's not good, because I've got one too. And she hasn't given me any solid evidence that she's not the right one." Another pause. "Can't you just put her on speaker so I can cross-examine her?"

"You've been watching too much Law & Order," said Laura.

"Fine," said Clint to Steve. "At least if one runs, we'll know." He hung up. "He wants to bring the other one here."

* * *

They stared at each other impassively for the 20 minutes it took for the Quinjet to arrive, broken only by Clint asking permission and Natasha granting it for him to feel her face for a mask. Of course he found nothing.

Seeing her own face on the woman stepping down from the Quinjet with Steve was just as unnerving the second time around.

"Right," said Clint to the second Natasha. "What happened in Budapest?"

"I shot a bunch of people dead while you picked up the actual target in a bar," said the fake Natasha. The real Natasha and Clint both blinked at that.

"Birthdate?"

"1930."

"Damn you for never telling me what it is. What are the names of my kids?"

"Is this a trick question?" the imposter said, furrowing her eyebrows. When no answer was immediately given, she answered, "Laura's kids are called Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel. But only Nathaniel's yours because you're married to Phillip J. Coulson."

Stunned silence.

"Now what on earth did you gain from telling him that?" asked Natasha.

"Well, I'm not going to lie when I'm being interrogated over my identity! For all I know, you'd already told him to use against me!"

"Solomon's rule," said Natasha. "I love him enough not to."

"Except I'm not married to Coulson," said Clint, but there was fear in his eyes. He turned to look at Laura, as if begging her reassurance.

"Yes, you are," she said simply. "We made you forget to save your life."

"Can we work out the details of Hawkeye's past after we figure out who's our imposter? I can't find a mask on this one, but I know they were working on making them harder to detect," Steve broke in.

"Oh, for fucks sake," said Natasha, and launched herself at the imposter, only to find herself matched blow for blow. Anything Natasha knew, the other one countered, and many of the strikes she had to avoid were techniques she hadn't seen since...

"You're Red Room," she gasped out and then, putting the pieces together, "Dottie."

Dottie laughed. Natasha lunged, and at last got her nails under the lip of the mask and pulled it off. Steve and Clint immediately leapt to her aid, and soon they had her secured in the Quinjet.

"Well, no wonder she knew who Clint slept with in Budapest, it was her," said Natasha, frowning. "What are the odds?"

"Well, I would have said the odds of my marriage being a sham perpetuated by everyone I knew to be nil, but here we are," said Clint, and shit, that was real hurt in his voice. Natasha steeled herself internally, still projecting calm, and met his eyes.

"I weighed of the costs of you finding out someday and hating me for the rest of your life against not being fast enough next time to get the pills away from you, and I decided it was worth it," she said flatly. "I okayed it as your medical proxy at the time, I suggested Laura to fill the role of wife, I knew you would probably never forgive me if you found out, but that telling Phil could kill him and bringing the memories back might kill you, and I'd be back where I started. I told the other Avengers and got their cooperation because they trusted me, as the person who knew you best, to make that decision. So yes, everyone you know was complicit, but I am the only one to blame because I held all the strings." In her mind she was already planning her return to Italy, to finish what she started and begin again with a new identity. Losing Clint would hurt her, but she had lived a long time, she knew she could survive it.

"I never lied to you, Clint," said Laura, coming up beside him. He interrupted her with a snort, but she plowed on unfazed. "-when I told you I love you. I have long loved you, just perhaps not exactly the way you thought."

"That doesn't really help," said Clint flatly.

"I agreed to marry you, Clint, of my own free will, that happened, it just wasn't you doing the asking. I knew there wasn't an end date, that I might grow old keeping house and raising kids and having sex with you. And I have thoroughly enjoyed keeping house and raising kids and having sex with you."

"Hang on," interjected Steve, who was staring at his phone. "Iron Man just declined my call."

"Yeah, he did mine as well, earlier," said Natasha, "even after I got around my blocked codes."

"I thought he'd stay and help run the base," Steve thought out loud, "but she went to talk to him about it and the next thing I know, he can't get away faster."

"She's been trying to split us up this whole time," said Clint, realization dawning on his face. "She got Banner to go back to hiding from the world, she said something to Stark, she did her best to get us to hunt the real you instead of her, and then she told me..."

"Something that would drive us apart and quite possibly damage your brain, " finished Natasha.

"Why?" said Steve.

"Why wouldn't an ex-Red Room agent who has managed to more or less live how she pleases since the 50s want to dismantle the Avengers?" asked Natasha rhetorically. "We are a threat. Loan vigilantes she can handle, but even Agent Carter brought a whole team of back up against Dottie Underwood."

"Peggy?" asked Steve, distracted.

"Oh, Peggy Carter, I remember those days," said Dottie from the jet, grinning maniacally. "She was a treasure, she was."

* * *

Clint knelt down and looked first Cooper, then Lila in the eye.

"You guys know I'm not really your dad?" he asked softly.

"We know we're adopted," said Cooper. "Mama told us not to talk about it with you around because it would make you sad."

"Well, she wasn't wrong," muttered Clint.

"But you are our real dad," piped up Lila. "Mommy said that too, that who was involved in the bi-awl-gee didn't matter, it was who loves us and looks after us is our parents, and it was just her for a while but now she was marrying you and you could be our dad."

Clint put two and two together and deduced that his babies had never called him their father to keep a secret, but because they meant it. He gathered them into a tight hug as tears dripped down his face.

"I love you," he whispered.

"Love you too, Daddy," they chorused.

* * *

"Would you like to tell me why I'm remembering being married to Agent Clint Barton?"

"Because you are married to Agent Clint Barton, Coulson, I suspect you're actually interested in why you're only remembering it now." Phil refused to react to his friend's sass.

"He was too tied up in my memories of the TAHITI project for me not to have huge gaps," said Phil. "But somehow I can't see him agreeing to let you wipe him from my mind completely instead of going with amnesia and working forward. I remember being told the Avengers didn't know I was alive, and it didn't mean much when that was two of my many subordinate officers and four people I didn't know very well, but it makes a lot of difference if it's my husband and his best friend. Nick, did you tell Clint and Natasha I died just to make sure I didn't break my programming?"

"Romanoff knows. She helped me set it up." Phil relaxed minutely. "And Barton things he's been happily married to Laura then-Nathan long enough to have fathered all her kids." Phil swayed slightly.

"So you didn't just not tell him I was alive, you fed him a whole new life? Filled in all those memories like you did with mine?"

"To save his life, yes."

Phil was silent a moment. When he spoke, his voice cracked. "Nick. Tell me everything."

"It might be easiest if I show you some of the security footage from my office shortly after New York."

* * *

One Monday afternoon soon after found Phil, Clint, and Laura settled on the porch of the farmhouse while Jamie and Clara played indoors and baby Nathaniel dozed on Laura's shoulder. Clint and Phil stared at each other, apprehension, hope, and disbelief warring in both their expressions.

"Shall I go first?" asked Laura after a moment, sounding amused. "My part in this is simplest." Clint nodded and Phil gestured her to continue. "I love Clint, but not in a way that impedes him having an actually romantic partner. I've gotten used to having him around, but really the only thing I'm going to ask is that you maintain your relationship with the kids. They've grown very attached and I really don't want to explain why daddy left."

"Of course!" exclaimed Clint, looking shocked. "They're my kids. They told me so themselves," he added, smiling to himself. "I'm their dad as long as they'll have me."

"I'm hardly going to discourage Clint from having a relationship with his own children," said Phil, "though I'm not sure how will I fit into the picture. Historically I'm not very good with kids."

"Then I'm happy for you to keep living here, Clint, and I'd also be alright with you moving out. Phil, you're welcome to live here, too, if you want."

"Oh, I couldn't," interjected Phil. "Thank you so much for the offer, but I am nowhere near ready for that."

"I would love to continue sleeping with you, or for that part of our relationship to end, or to work out some poly arrangement. Whatever makes the most sense."

"God, you're a wonderful woman," said Clint fervently. Phil nodded emphatically.

"I'll go next, shall I? My implanted memories are somewhat less complicated," said Phil with a quirk of the mouth. Clint grinned and Laura laughed. Phil took a breath and sobered. "I've regained parts of my memory, but there are still chunks missing. And there's the simple fact that we've both been through a lot since New York and I, at least, am a different person. So I don't know that we could pick up where we left off even if I remembered where that was."

Clint and Laura nodded.

"Fair," said Clint. "I have fake memories of falling in love with Laura, and real memories of being very happy together. I have barely any memories yet of being with you – going anywhere near them hurts."

Phil nodded. "They do that."

Clint continued, "But just looking at you – I know you're important to me, being with you feels right. I don't think it would be very hard to fall in love with you again. But I'm also happy here."

Phil nodded. "Would you prefer to go on as before, then? Acknowledge each other as ex-lovers and move on with our lives?"

Laura cut in. "I don't think you should do that unless at least one of you really wants to, and you both look miserable at the thought, so I'm going to guess you don't."

There was a moment's silence.

"What if I continue living here," Clint said slowly, "and dated you while staying married to Laura? Unless you're not down with poly, not everyone is." Phil cut off his babbling before it could really begin by putting a hand on his knee.

"So, if I'm understanding. You and Laura will continue as before, and you and I will start fresh, and we'll see what happens? Because that sounds like an excellent plan to me."

"All in favor," said Laura, raising a hand. Phil raised his. Clint dropped his face into his hands and laughed.

"I have a type," he said, "and it's _dorks_."

"I can live with that," said Phil, and Clint raised his hand.


End file.
